This Ship is Sailing Forward

Published:

Fri Jun 2 '17

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Elissa Day, one of our prayer team members, explains how a little prayer has been going a long way at the South Service.

In the last few months at the South Service, we’ve been experiencing exciting moments as we pray and ask the Spirit to come.

A few months ago Lars shared a word at church about a ship in perfect condition but no wind to move it. He encouraged us as a church to call on the spirit to move us forward. As a prayer team at the South Service, we sensed this was a call to be hungry for the Spirit to move and guide us into new areas.

Over the months following we have experienced just that, a real move of the Spirit, particularly in the area of healing. I personally hadn’t seen many people instantly healed when I’ve prayed before but over the last few weeks we’ve seen immediate physical and emotional healings week after week.

One example, our friend Chloe had fallen down the stairs and came to church limping. We felt we should pray after the service; just simple prayers asking Jesus for the knee to be fully restored. Tentative at first, we asked how it felt after prayer and as she tested it she broke into tears of joy saying it felt completely better and the pain had gone. Even to the point she jumped and danced, praising God as she left church that day! When I followed up with her a week later, she told me how she’d shared the story with colleagues and friends, as she felt convicted to share the testimony with others.

A few other examples: we prayed for a lady who had been experiencing pain in her wrists for a long time and the last we heard she hadn’t felt the pain again since! Another story was a healing of a man’s back who had been coming to the Alpha course. Phil, on our prayer team, even felt prompted to pray for one of the production staff who was limping as he packed down after the South Service.

It’s not because we’re an amazing prayer team or we’re super holy people or that we get our ‘prayers right’. I believe it is God’s response to a hungry and faithful heart to see Him move. Each week we just pray for 20-30 minutes before the service. We share anything we hear God saying with the host and every week we have people respond by coming forward for prayer.

I’m continuing to pray that as a church would put our sails up as high and as wide as we can to catch all the wind we can and that He would continue to increase our faith. I’d encourage you to pray with us for the Spirit to continue to move, and to either join a prayer team or come receive prayer yourself, we’d love to pray for you and bless you wherever you’re at.

I’ll finish with a verse that always increases my faith:My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Ephesians 3: 14 – 21 (MSG)